It was completed in 1916 as an "automotive department store" operated by the Clemens Automobile Company.

[4] At that time, the connection to the Hotel Fort Des Moines was sealed off.

[5] The building is a six-story brick structure with a reinforced concrete skeleton that rises 95 feet (29 m) above the ground.

[6] It is thought that the Des Moines architectural firm of Sawyer & Watrous designed the Neoclassical-style building, but that cannot be confirmed.

This article about a property in Polk County, Iowa on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.